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Huntley faces decision on 'whole life' term
The Soham double murderer, Ian Huntley, will learn today whether he will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing the schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
A high court judge is due to announce the minimum number of years Huntley, 31, must serve for murdering the two girls in August 2002. The former school caretaker is currently serving two life sentences at Wakefield prison, in West Yorkshire.
Mr Justice Moses was the trial judge in the case. Sentencing Huntley, he said: "There are few worse crimes than your murder of those two young girls."
Holly and Jessica, both 10, vanished while walking near their homes in Soham, Cambridgeshire, on August 4, 2002. A gamekeeper found their bodies in an overgrown ditch at nearby Lakenheath, in Suffolk, two weeks later.
After his trial, it emerged that Huntley had previously been accused of rape and assault on young girls.
His girlfriend, Maxine Carr, was sentenced to three and a half years in jail in December 2003 for perverting the course of justice.
She was released in May 2004 because she had already served 16 months on remand, and in February this year was granted lifelong anonymity by the courts.
Although Huntley was given two mandatory life sentences in 2003 for the murders, the minimum term he will serve has not been set until today. This is because the system on serving life sentences was being changed as he stood trial.
Until 2002 it was up to the home secretary to decide the length of time a murderer stayed in jail; now it is up to trial judges to set the minimum tariff.
Mr Justice Moses must consider new principles set out under the Criminal Justice Act, which became law in December 2003.
These principles state that "whole life" prison terms should be given to murderers in cases that show a high degree of premeditation, involve abduction of the victim or are of a sexual or sadistic nature.
Criminal justice sources say it is possible, under these new guidelines, for Huntley to get a "whole life" tariff.
Earlier this month, another inmate at Wakefield prison attacked Huntley with boiling water. The killer was treated for scalding injuries in the health wing of the high security jail.
Huntley has regularly been threatened with revenge attacks for the killing of the schoolgirls.